


You are the Shelter, He is the Storm

by ScarlettSiren



Category: Free!
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV First Person, Pining, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:16:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettSiren/pseuds/ScarlettSiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako will always love Haru, no matter how many times he goes back to Rin. What started as a shoulder to cry on has become a lot more complicated, and Haru realizes he has no one to blame but himself. But when Haru starts to think that maybe Mako won't be there for him forever, it makes him rethink what he and Rin have, and if it's what he really wants. [First-Person Haruka's POV, told as if speaking to Mako...really just a rambling narrative]</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are the Shelter, He is the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> I saw someone comment in the MakoHaru tag they’d like to see a fic where Makoto isn’t a doormat. And I was all ready to agree, but then I realized that because of his personality…it just makes sense. Mako cares so much about Haru that I feel like he would put up with anything from him. I know this fic also has RinHaru but you should probably know I don’t really ship it. I understand the UST, I do…but it just seems so destructive and not in the sexy way. This fic reflects that. Sorry if you don’t agree. Warning for references to an abusive relationship...mostly emotional, but mentions of rough sex.

My relationship with Rin is…complicated. But with you, Mako…things are just so easy. At least…they were.

Rin draws me in with his competitive spirit and strength. He has an allure to me, like water. I feel drawn to be wrapped up in him…but just like in water, after too long, I find it impossible to breathe. I have to claw toward the surface just to remember myself, to find air.

And that’s where you are, hand outstretched, ready to haul me out of the depths.

At first, that’s all it is: a helping hand. When Rin and I fight, you listen to me. You probably think I don’t see the pain in your eyes. You probably don’t think I see the wonderment there, too, that I’m finally opening up about something to you, even if that something breaks your heart.

After a while, though, that pain in your expression is too much for me to take. I want to make it better.

No…I can try to say I did it for you, and maybe I did, a little bit. But it was selfish of me. I needed to _feel_ your comfort. I needed something more than what Rin was giving me. Yet I wanted him, too. So I would leave him and come to you…but only until the morning.

Rin is like a typhoon…and every time he leaves me cold and shivering and defeated, you’re always there. You’re my shelter from that raging storm.

I never stopped to think that one day, you could be swept away by those hurricane-force winds. The flood-tides could just pick you up and whisk you away from me, and I’d be left there, standing in the torrential downpour with no one to turn to.

And I know you say you’d never leave me; you’re too loyal for that. But how long until I break you? How long until you can’t take it anymore?

It can’t be easy on you. I go to him, and whenever I return to you, you know it’s only temporary. You know it’s because we’re fighting, and that tomorrow, I’m just going to take him back.

That’s how it’s always been.

You’re content, it seems, for it to always be that way.

But you know, Mako…it’s okay to want.

It's almost always the same: I leave him in a fit of anger, I come to you, and you welcome me with open arms. You console me in every way I demand. Stripped, our bodies rut together…never actual fucking; that feels too much like cheating. It would make it too real.

It's all needy hands, possessive mouths and desperate whimpers. I'm rough with you like he's rough with me; I bite, pull your hair, rake my nails down your back. You don't complain. You don't care that the others will see. For me, it’s all anger and resentment. For you, it’s tender kisses and a soothing caress. We come together, and even if I feel as if I’m about to shake apart, your touch anchors me, even as you catch your breath and school your features. I still see it in your eyes: that hint of regret, and more caring and love than I want to acknowledge.

And I leave you, without even a thank you, but you still call me your friend.

How can you let me be so selfish?

How can I let myself do this to you?

But Rin...Rin is a force. It’s impossible not to get swept up in him: he flows like water but rages like a fire. I give him drive and it makes me feel like I matter…but I drive him for the wrong reasons, it seems. He only wants to beat me, best me, surpass me in all ways. Sometimes I think it’s less about attraction and more about a sense of control. Of victory.

I’m not sure what it is that becomes the final straw. Then again, Rin’s always rougher when we have a meet coming up. Perhaps, when we’re together, he claws too hard at my back, or bites too brutally at my neck. He says he wants you to see the marks during practice. He sees how you look at me. He whispers harshly that I'm his, bites the shell of my ear until it bleeds, ripping at my clothes, but no...that isn't it. When he leans down, fingers sliding under my shirt, trying to pull it away, he tells me,

"You swim for me, Haru. Your beauty in the water is for me alone."

That isn't freedom.

All I ever wanted was to be _free_.

And I can’t be free with him.

I’ve never run so fast in my life as I did then, after I’d told Rin it was over, for real this time, redressed and stormed out. He dismissed my words with his usual snark, waving them off with a cocky smirk, as if I couldn’t resist him for very long. And that may have been true, in the past, but unlike Rin, I have grown I think, finally, into the kind of person he cannot bully anymore. I used to try to justify it, say it was just rough play, even emotionally, but that I liked it, just like he told me I did. But I didn’t…not really. Like water, I guess I was just going with the flow, letting myself get pulled into his riptide and not realizing I was in too deep until it was too late. But you were like my lighthouse, Mako…leading me back to shore. Reminding me that water is also powerful; it can swell and crash and drown all in its path. I felt like I’d been put behind a dam: all I wanted was to be free again.

When I burst through the door of my home, you’re still there where I left you less than an hour before to go to him. You had come over to help me with homework…and I left you, for him. Just like I always did when he called. You leap up from the couch, startled, all that concern back on your face.

“Haru, what’s wrong?” You ask, and I want to laugh or cry, I don’t know which, because you…perfect, beautiful Mako, you’ve been here all along and I’ve used you carelessly. What kind of friend am I? But better yet, what kind of friend are you, who stays regardless? What did I ever do to deserve the honor of your unconditional, unerring friendship?

I peel off my hoodie and close the distance between us, my lips meeting yours. It’s desperate, needy, my hands scrabbling at your shoulders while yours anchor me at the waist. I feel you acquiesce: the rigidness of your posture relaxes and you sigh into my mouth. You hardly kiss back; let me take what I need and give just enough in return that I know you’re with me. But that’s not what I want anymore.

“No, Mako…” I mumble, and your brow furrows. You pull back, look down at me, but I yank you closer again by your shirt, kissing you harder as I push you into the next room. This just confuses you, because my words don’t match my actions, but only because you _don’t understand_.

“Haru…?” You manage in between fevered nips at your bottom lip. You’re still walking backwards as I crowd against you, leading you, corralling you until your knees hit the mattress in my bedroom. I hastily remove your shirt, then my own.

“I’m done…being caged…” I explain, because that’s the only word for it. Caged…by Rin’s arms, caged by his words, by his actions, by our past…I just want to be free again, and I never feel freer than I do when I’m with you.

“Haru, I—” You don’t know what to say, and you’re still confused, judging by the look on your face. But your eyes are so earnest, they only reaffirm my decision. How could I have ever denied you before?

“ _Free_ …” I elaborate, hands going for your belt. I unhook it and slide it from the loops before getting rid of your pants altogether, shoving you to the bed. Your grunt is muffled under my own words. “I want to be free again. It’s all I ever wanted, and I was too stupid to realize it…I can never be free with Rin.”

“If you two had another fight…” You reason, clambering back further on the bed in just your boxers. Even in that state, you still look at me with such sobering concern. “It’s okay, Haru. We can talk, you know I’m here for—”

“No, Mako. _Listen_ to me…” I growl, stepping out of my own pants and swimsuit before climbing onto the bed, knees caging your hips. “I don’t want Rin…I never wanted Rin, not really. It was stupid of me. I want _you_. I’ve only ever wanted you, I think. But I let Rin—”

“Haru…” The way you say my name is different, now; wondering and yet somehow with a pang of betrayal, like you’ve been stabbed in the chest. Your hand comes up to run through my hair, and I grab your wrist to hold it there, like I never want you to let go. “I understand you’re with him…”—and you still can’t say his name when we’re like this, which makes my heart drop into my stomach—“…but I never meant to make you feel—”

I lean down and kiss you, swallowing the word ‘obligated’, because I swear if I hear it, my heart won’t be able to take it. That you could ever believe you don’t deserve every ounce of affection I can give you is beyond my comprehension. But I suppose that’s part of what makes you, you.

You don’t protest the kiss, for which I’m grateful, and it allows me to work on getting your boxers off without interruption. Your hips lift up to accommodate, so I peel the last of your clothing off and toss it aside. I finally pull back for air, reaching toward my nightstand for the lube I keep there. Your hands splay over my waist, sliding up my sides with the sort of reverence that makes my gut twist.

When I come back, I roll us both, letting your knees rest on either side of my hips. The small bottle of lube ends up on my stomach, ignored as I pull you down for another breathless kiss. It's easier to kiss you than to look at you, but I need to be sure that you know.

“I want you tonight, Mako. For real.” My eyes don’t waver from yours and you swallow, unsure.

“H-Haru…?”

“I ended things with Rin. I want you. _Only_ you. So can I have that?” I have to force down the lump in my throat, wondering when that even sprang up. “I know I…I ask so much of you, Mako. But can I have you, truly? Can I give you myself fully? I promise, I won’t take it back anymore. Not for him.”

Maybe I sound more desperate than I care to admit, because you lean down and offer a fiercely loving kiss, your hand carding further into my hair while the other stays on my hip.

“Of course, Haru…anything…” You soothe through too-gentle kisses, whispering more reassurances than I feel I deserve.

You're so gentle, like he never was, pressing just one finger inside me, wet with lube and not just spit or nothing at all. Your eyes never leave my face; I have to close mine and turn away so I don't have to watch that beautiful expression that breaks my heart. That only makes you hesitate more, but I rock my hips, encouraging you with the sounds I make.

"Mako...more, please..." I beg after too long, finally meeting your eyes. You still have that look of concern, and it burns me up inside...but you're also concentrating, like you couldn't possibly let your focus wane from me for even a single second.

You give me what I want, like as if I've ever known you to refuse me...slipping in a second finger with even more lube. This kind of burn is unfamiliar...it's nothing but heat and need, and when you scissor your fingers just so, I cry out in pleasure--not pain.

You work me at the pace I set...my needy whines telling you when to add a third finger. A frustrated growl several minutes later tells you I'm ready, but you still ask if I'm sure as you slick yourself with lube. I haul you down, my answer getting tangled somewhere between our mouths as we kiss, but you hear. You know.

You kiss my eyelids soothingly as you slide in, and I'm certain I've never been treated with this much care in my entire life. Your hips don't rock until mine do, and even then, it's slow, building to match my pace only when I beg you.

Your tongue soothes over the angry red bites Rin left behind, and I have to swallow a sob, because your tenderness just reminds me that this is how it should have always been. I don’t deserve it...maybe I did, back before I had let Rin have his way, but not now…not after everything I’ve put you through. You don’t seem to believe that, or don’t seem to care, because you give me your everything…just like you always have. Just like you undoubtedly always will.

The way you move inside me is perfect; gentle like he never was. Fevered and wanting, yes, but with the sort of desperation that comes from love and a need to be close, not domination or control. You don’t want to win; you want us both to _feel_.

It’s that, I think, more than the achingly perfect rhythm that we’ve made that brings me to completion first. There is nothing brutal about the way you cant your hips just right, angling each thrust where it makes me scream the loudest. When you wrap your hand around my cock, your movements smooth and slow and just tight enough, my hips rut into the warmth a half-dozen times before I come, screaming your name.

And my name becomes a litany on your lips as you shudder, feeling the way my body holds you, welcoming like I never was. But I am now, hooking my ankles behind your back, pulling you closer, deeper, and with a strangled yelp you come inside me. I shiver at the feeling of it, drawing you down for a kiss. It’s sloppy, but somehow perfect, even as we both pant for breath into each other’s mouths. You roll off to one side, but we don’t part because I don’t let you; my legs and arms still tangled around you. You laugh a little at that, with a tender smile as you jokingly liken me to an octopus. It only makes me kiss you again.

You still stroke my back, comforting, but this time I return it, my fingers tracing patterns along your arms. You must know from that, this time _is_ different, because you lean down and kiss me softly, something that you never did after, not before today. When I return that kiss, you relax even further, and it’s clear we’re both content to stay like this for the night. I won’t leave you to go to him. I won’t ask you to go back home. I won’t expect you to be gone first thing tomorrow.

But I wonder to myself, as the lull of sleep drags us both under, content in each other’s arms…how long until you would have given up on me? How long until I would have broken you?

I don’t want to know, I _never_ want to know…and I never will, I swear it; because now, I’ll be your shelter…and we can weather our storms together.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, sorry...that was a bit of a feels-fest. I wanted to write fluffy, yet angsty smut for these two and this is what I got. And look at me actually writing canon!verse for once. It's a miracle!


End file.
